China’s Arms Fell Short In Pakistan—Its Long Game Didn’t

For years, the China-Pakistan relationship has been portrayed as an "all-weather friendship," but beneath this oft-repeated slogan lies a colder calculus. It is a relationship forged not in mutual affection but in mutual utility—anchored in Beijing’s long-standing imperative to check Indian power.

Far from being a partnership of equals, this is a structurally asymmetric entente, where China plays the architect and Pakistan, more often than not, the instrument.

At the heart of this alliance is a strategic wager by China that a militarily potent but economically brittle Pakistan can serve as a permanent pressure point against India, a force that bleeds Indian bandwidth, diverts Indian deployments, and stunts Indian ambitions.

This logic, rooted in a doctrine of strategic distraction, has dictated decades of arms transfers, satellite coordination, diplomatic shielding, and, increasingly, a kind of dependency that borders on the parasitic.

The recently concluded Operation Sindoor offers a moment to re-evaluate this strategy.

Pakistan’s inability to mount a credible response, despite billions in Chinese hardware and years of tactical recalibration, has triggered a fresh round of introspection—not just about the capability of Chinese military exports, but about the very foundations of Beijing’s "containment through Pakistan" doctrine.

The Fragile Shield of Chinese Steel

Over the past two decades, China has taken on the role of Pakistan’s principal military supplier and diplomatic shield. It has supplied billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment, ranging from fighter jets and missile systems to submarines and surveillance platforms.

The inventory is impressive on paper: J-10C fighter jets with advanced AESA radars and long-range PL-15 missiles; HQ-9 air defense systems; VT-4 main battle tanks; SH-15 howitzers; Type 054A/P frigates; Hangor-class submarines; and satellites like PRSC-EO1, co-developed to enhance remote sensing and intelligence capabilities.

The underlying logic behind China's arming of Pakistan is clear and has been known for decades - an emboldened and militarily capable Pakistan would compel India to divert significant resources and attention to its western front, thereby slowing or even thwarting India's ability to push back against China.

Yet when tested during Operation Sindoor, this vast Chinese-made war chest proved underwhelming. Indian strikes dismantled key Pakistani military assets with speed and precision. HQ-9 air defense systems—touted as China's answer to the US Patriot—either failed to activate or were bypassed entirely.

Pakistan’s retaliatory efforts were minimal, with no substantive damage inflicted on Indian military infrastructure. In more than one case, Chinese-supplied PL-15 missile was fired at an Indian Rafale fighter but missed and was recovered largely intact—an intelligence windfall for New Delhi and a propaganda nightmare for Beijing.

The Impact On Chinese Strategy

Some have been quick to read Pakistan’s failure as a reflection of the limitations of Chinese military technology. The ease with which Indian forces outmanoeuvred Chinese-supplied air defence systems, fighter jets, and radar networks in Pakistani hands has been taken as evidence that China’s own arsenal may be similarly vulnerable—an unsettling prospect given Beijing’s ongoing military standoff with India along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh. That conclusion, while tempting, is overly simplistic.

A large portion of what China exports is a downgraded or customised variant of its own domestic systems. While this does not necessarily make them bad, it does mean that Beijing is selective in what capabilities it shares. China is unlikely to export its most advanced versions without safeguards.

It would be naive to think that China hadn’t considered the possibility of a largely intact PL-15 missile—fired from a Chinese-built J-10C at an Indian Rafale—ending up in Indian hands after landing in a field in Punjab.

In essence, Islamabad gets the tools it needs to posture, not necessarily to prevail.

Yet, there is reputational cost for China.

The underperformance of its platforms on an active battlefield weakens its pitch to other potential buyers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In an era where arms exports are as much about prestige as they are about profit, this matters.

The reputational cost for Beijing is not trivial, particularly as it seeks to position itself as a peer competitor to the United States and a hegemon in Asia.

Second, there is the growing realisation in India and elsewhere that the Pakistan card, while still dangerous, may not be as versatile as once assumed. The notion of China being able to "fight India to the last Pakistani" only works as long as the Pakistani military remains a credible threat. Operation Sindoor has placed a dent in that perception.

However, it would be unwise to write off the strategic design altogether.

The Pakistan Army may have floundered, but it remains armed, nuclear-capable, and ideologically opposed to India. China’s military and financial lifeline ensures that it will not fade quietly into irrelevance. It will regroup, retrain, and rearm. And in doing so, it will continue to serve its primary function: anchoring India to a continental conflict while China builds maritime and economic influence elsewhere.

This is the core of China’s long-standing strategic calculus — use Pakistan not as a front-line warrior capable of defeating India, but as a flanking threat that forces India to remain permanently vigilant. In this model, Pakistan functions less as an independent actor and more as a strategic decoy. Its role is to stretch India’s defence apparatus thin—to keep its attention split between the Line of Control in the west and the Line of Actual Control in the north.

To understand this, consider the case of the Hangor-class submarines currently being inducted by Pakistan under a $5 billion deal with China. These are AIP (Air-Independent Propulsion) capable submarines—meaning they can stay submerged for extended periods without surfacing, making them harder to detect and destroy. By contrast, India’s current submarine fleet lacks operational AIP capability.

The mere presence of these Chinese-built submarines in the Arabian Sea will compel the Indian Navy to dedicate significant anti-submarine warfare resources in the region.

That is the point. It is not necessary for Pakistan’s submarines to successfully engage Indian warships. Their role is to exist credibly enough to merit counter-deployment.

Every hour and dollar spent by India monitoring or hedging against a Pakistani threat is time and money not spent countering China’s increasingly assertive moves in the Indian Ocean Region or the Indo-Pacific theatre more broadly.

The same logic applied to the delivery of J-10C fighters to Pakistan—a move that followed India’s acquisition of Rafale fighters.

This is containment through diffusion. By ensuring Pakistan’s military remains just potent enough to provoke caution—even if not powerful enough to dominate—China creates a strategic cul-de-sac for India. In such a scenario, Pakistan does not need to land a decisive blow. Its job is to bleed India’s bandwidth.

Therein lies the enduring brilliance—and brutality—of the Chinese strategy. It is not a strategy of conquest. It is a strategy of constraint. It ensures that India cannot focus solely on Ladakh, Arunachal, or the Indian Ocean because a restless western front constantly demands vigilance. Pakistan’s military may fail in execution, but its very existence, coupled with Chinese patronage, succeeds in achieving Beijing’s objective.

So even as the images of bombed Pakistani air bases and silenced radar systems cause reputational damage to Beijing, its pawn still stands. Bloodied, yes. But not broken.

And for China, that may be enough.